<h2 id="c3"><span class="small">CHAPTER III</span> <br/>THE “FLYING CORNTASSEL”</h2>
<p>The evening after her arrival in Salt Lake
City, Rosemary Sample, the young airplane
stewardess, overheard a conversation
that interested her greatly and at the same
time strengthened her faith in the rather mysterious
young man, Danby Force.</p>
<p>She might have thought of herself as an
eavesdropper had not the incident occurred in
that most public of all public places, the lobby
of a large hotel, the Hotel Temple Square.
Not that she was staying at so expensive a
place. Far from that, she occupied a room in
a clean, modest-priced rooming house. But
Rosemary had a weakness for large downy
chairs, soft lights, expensive draperies and all
that and, since at this time of year this hotel
was not crowded, she could see no reason why
she might not indulge these tastes for an hour
or two at least.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">[49]</div>
<p>She was buried deep in a heavily upholstered
chair, thinking dreamily of her home in Kansas,
of her mother, father, and the young people
of the old crowd back home. She was smiling
at the name they had given her, “The Flying
Corntassel of Kansas,” when, chancing to
look up, she beheld a vision of beauty all
wrapped in deep purple and white. To her
astonishment she realized that this was none
other than the flying gypsy’s adopted daughter
who called herself Petite Jeanne. She wore a
long cape of purple cloth trimmed with white
fox fur.</p>
<p>At the same moment someone else caught
the vision, Danby Force. And Danby Force
had something to say about it.</p>
<p>“What a gorgeous cape, and what marvelous
color!” he exclaimed. There was in his tone not
a trace of flattery. He spoke with the sincerity
of one who really knows beauty of texture
when he sees it.</p>
<p>“Yes,” the little French girl agreed, “it is
very beautiful. It was sent to me only last
month by my gypsy friends in France. Since
I have had a little money I have helped them
at times. Their life is hard. These days are
very hard.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_50">[50]</div>
<p>“The cloth,” she went on after a time, “was
woven by hand from pure sheep’s wool taken
from the high French Alps.”</p>
<p>“And the color?” Danby Force asked eagerly.</p>
<p>“Ah-h—” the little French girl smiled.
“That is a deep secret that only the gypsies
know. There are those who say the kettle of
color only boils at midnight and that then the
color is mixed with blood. That is nonsense.
These are good gypsies, Christian gypsies, just
as the great preacher, Gypsy Smith was. But
they have their secrets and they keep them
well.</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” she added after a moment’s
thought, “this is the royal purple one reads of
in the Bible. Who can tell?”</p>
<p>“That,” said Danby Force, “is a valuable secret.”
He motioned the little French girl to a
seat and took one close beside her.</p>
<p>“I know a man,” he said after a moment of
silence, “who made some valuable discoveries
regarding colors. He could dye cloth in such
a manner that it would not fade, yet the process
was not costly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_51">[51]</div>
<p>“This man had spent his boyhood in a town
where textile mills had flourished. After his
remarkable secret discoveries he returned to
that town to find the people idle, the mills falling
into decay. The weaving industry had
moved south where there was cotton and
cheap labor—pitifully cheap!”</p>
<p>Danby Force paused to stare at the pattern
of the thick carpet on the floor. He appeared
to be making a mental comparison between
that carpet and the cheap rag rugs on the
floors in that forgotten town.</p>
<p>Rosemary stole a look at the little French
girl’s face. It was all compassion.</p>
<p>“And this little forgotten town?” suggested
Petite Jeanne at last.</p>
<p>“It is forgotten no longer.” Danby Force
smiled a rare smile. “The man who possessed
those rare secrets of color gave them to his
home town. Since they were able to produce
cloth that was cheap, and better than any other
of its kind, the mills began to flourish again
and the people to work and smile.</p>
<p>“But now,” he added as a shadow passed
over his interesting face, “their prosperity is
threatened once more.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_52">[52]</div>
<p>Then, as if he had been about to divulge a
forbidden secret, he sprang to his feet. “I must
be going. We leave at eight. That right?”</p>
<p>“It is quite right,” agreed Petite Jeanne.</p>
<p>Rosemary Sample went to her rest that
night with a strange sense of futile longing
gnawing at her heart. What was its cause?
She could not tell. Had she become truly interested
in that strange young man, Danby
Force, who talked so beautifully of God’s unseen
power, who spoke of doing good to thousands,
and yet who might have—. She would
not say it even to herself, yet she could not
avoid thinking. Could she become seriously
interested in such a young man? She could
not be sure.</p>
<p>“That charming little French girl is carrying
him away in the morning,” she assured
herself. “I may never see him again.</p>
<p>“He is going back to the hunting lodge. I
wonder—”</p>
<p>She tried to picture in her mind the bit of
life’s drama that would be enacted by Danby
Force and the little French girl after they had
landed and gone down the narrow trail to the
lodge. In the midst of this rather vain imagining
she fell asleep.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_53">[53]</div>
<p>She awoke next morning prepared for one
more journey through the air, one more group
of passengers. “Wonder if there will be any
interesting ones?” she whispered. “Wonder if
that dark-faced woman will return with me?”
She shuddered. “She’s like a raven, Poe’s raven.
Wonder if she’s filed a complaint about
her missing bag. And if she has, what will
come of it?”</p>
<p>After oatmeal, coffee and rolls eaten at a
counter with the capable and ever friendly
Mark Morris at her side, she felt well fortified
for the day’s adventures, come what might.</p>
<p>We advertise our occupation in life by the
posture we assume. The barber has his way
of standing that marks him as a barber. The
clerk of a department store puts on a mask in
the morning and takes it off at night. The posture
of an airplane stewardess is one suggesting
the jaunty joy of life pictured by a blue
bird on the tiptop of a tree, seventy feet in air.</p>
<p>“Safe?” her posture says plainer than words.
“Of course it’s safe to fly. Look at me, I’ve
flown four hundred thousand miles.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_54">[54]</div>
<p>Rosemary Sample was an airplane stewardess
to the very tips of her fingers. Her task
was a dual one, to inspire confidence and to
entertain. She did both extremely well. Yet
she too must be entertained. She must receive
a thrill now and again. Riding in a plane
brought no thrill to her. Only her passengers
could bring her the change she craved.</p>
<p>“There’s always one,” she had a way of saying
to her friends, “one passenger who is worth
five hours of study.”</p>
<p>She was not long in finding the “one” on
this journey back to Chicago. Strangely
enough, he took the seat vacated by the dark-complexioned
lady. Yet, how different he was!
He was young, not much over twenty, Rosemary
thought.</p>
<p>“Hello, little girl!” were his first words.
“What’s your name?”</p>
<p>“Rosemary Sample.” She smiled because
she was saying to herself, “He’ll do the talking.
That’s fine. I’m too tired to talk.”</p>
<p>“So you’re a sample.” He laughed. “I’d like
a dollar bottle of the same.”</p>
<p>“A sample’s all there is and all there can be,”
she replied quickly.</p>
<p>“What! You mean to say you couldn’t
grow?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_55">[55]</div>
<p>“Exactly. Five feet four inches tall, weight
a hundred and twenty pounds. Those are the
regulations for a stewardess. You can be smaller,
but no larger. You see,” she laughed, “they
couldn’t make the airplane cabins to fit the
stewardesses, tall, short, thin or thick, so the
stewardess must be picked to fit the cabin.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” The young man’s grin was frank,
honest and friendly. “Well, this is my first
trip in these big birds. I’ve got a little ship all
my own, only just now she’s busted up quite
a bit.”</p>
<p>“Cracked up? Too bad!” Rosemary was
truly sorry. She was going to like this passenger.
Besides, to one who sails the air a crack-up
is just as true an occasion for sorrow as a
shipwreck is to a mariner on the high seas.
“What happened?” she asked quietly. “Bad
storm?”</p>
<p>“No.” He laughed lightly. “Couple of struts
got loose. I nearly lost control two thousand
feet up. Cracked up in a corn field. Shucked
a lot of corn.” He laughed rather loudly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_56">[56]</div>
<p>Rosemary’s face was sober. She had seen
his kind before. They went in for flying because
it promised thrills. They neglected their
planes. If they crashed and were not killed,
they turned it into a joke. The whole thing
made her feel sick inside. She loved flying.
She thought of it as one of God’s latest and
most marvelous gifts to man. She knew too
that nothing very short of perfection in care,
equipment and piloting could put it in the place
in every man’s life where it belonged.</p>
<p>“So you laugh at a crash that results from
carelessness?” Her lips were white. “That’s
the sort of thing that makes life hard for all
of us who are trying to make flying seem a safe
and wonderful thing. Nothing but selfishness
could make one laugh at a tragedy or a near
tragedy that is his own fault. It—”</p>
<p>But she stopped herself. After all, she was
a stewardess, being paid to be pleasant.</p>
<p>Springing to her feet, she moved up the
aisle to see that the airplane load of traveling
salesmen forward had the papers, pencils, magazines
and pillows they needed.</p>
<p>“So you’re a sample,” said the youth as she
returned to her seat. “Don’t know as I want
a full bottle after all.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_57">[57]</div>
<p>“In the end you’ll take it.” She was smiling
now. “Or someone will be setting up a marble
marker where little Willie lies. And that,” she
added slowly, “would be too bad.”</p>
<p>She spoke, not of herself, but her attitude toward
aviation. He knew this. She could read
it in his eyes.</p>
<p>“Tha—thanks for these few kind words,” he
replied rather lamely.</p>
<p>Five minutes later this young man, who
went by the name of William VanGeldt and
whose family evidently were possessed of considerable
wealth, was speaking in glowing
tones of his mother. He had, the young stewardess
discovered, beneath his thin coating of
indifference to the serious things of life, a
warm heart full of appreciation for the ones
who had given of their best that his life might
be well worth living.</p>
<p>“He’ll take the full bottle,” she whispered to
herself. “And he’ll get to like it.” She was to
learn the truth of these words in days that
were to come.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_58">[58]</div>
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